To mark the latest release of Upland's FileBound workflow automation solution, Jon Eilers, General Manager FileBound US presented at a series of Roadshows across Australia. IDM asked John to highlight some of the recent and upcoming enhancements in the platform roadmap.

IDM: What are some of the most things coming up from FileBound in 2018?

JE: We have a number of exciting developments in Collaboration on the roadmap, including the new Web-based document editor (due out mid-2018) and expanded desktop integration between LOB applications and FileBound.

FileBound Connect is our new Windows client application that hooks directly into web applications such as Salesforce and this will expand in 2018 to cover more desktop LOB applications such as Microsoft GP, Navilon, Superion, and more.

This allows Salesforce users for example to automatically view and access documents in FileBound related to a Salesforce contact. They can also drag and drop documents and emails into FileBound from the Salesforce interface.

Site OCR is a feature that is now offered in all editions. Previously it was provided in the Enterprise edition to allow users to upload a PDF document and have it OCR automatically.

IDM: FileBound Connect was a new adding to the latest version just launched, FileBound V7.4. What specifically does it offer?

JE: FileBound Connect is like having a personal attendant doing the work for you. People don’t want to spend their time in a content management solution or an imaging solution. What they want to do is spend their time in the core applications that are driving their work.

In fact, Nucleus Research estimates that toggling between applications can take up as much as 1-2 hours of an employee's time each week. 

With FileBound Connect integrated into your LOB application it can sit in the background doing the work for you. As you go from a contract to an invoice to an HR file, FileBound Connect is there doing the search and retrieval and giving you what you want at the time you want it.

So you can perform all the tasks you would need to in FileBound, from a simple user interface. It reduces the number of clicks to get your work done.

IDM: FileBound is now promoted as a cloud-based enterprise workflow automation rather than ECM, why is that?

JE: Our parent company, Upland Software, has created three distinct product lines including Workflow Automation, Digital Engagement and Project/IT Management. We sit firmly in the workflow automation stack.

ECM is ever evolving, and we are doing it in ways that make customers more productive. At the end of the day it’s got to be easier for the user to do what they need to do and I think we sometimes lose sight of that.

Across the three product lines we now have 12 distinct SaaS Applications, so the entire company is firmly focussed on cloud services. At FileBound we are directing our efforts towards delivering realtime productivity optimisation, enhancing  collaboration and functional automation across your organisation’s entire value chain.

IDM: What are the main priorities for FileBound moving forward?

JE: From my perspective, it’s also about partner enablement and how we make the lives of our partners easier. All of the decisions inside our organisation are driven now with that in mind. Whether it’s a product decision around the new Viewer or FileBound Connect, how do we make the partners more successful with the tools their customers want.

In turn we’ve also invested heavily in education and our Learning Management System and the way our partners are using The Upland University for FileBound is very exciting. We now find that customers are using the University before our partners go out and perform discovery before a deployment, so they don’t have to spend the first few days explaining the product nomenclature.

For further information visit http://www.filebound.com.au/